AMERICAN ART, 1776-1913

01:082:351:01 Professor Tanya Sheehan 01:050:351:01 Art History Department Fall 2010 Rutgers University [email protected] Tu/Th 2:50-4:10pm Zimmerli Art Museum Office: Art History Annex Multipurpose Room 60 College Avenue Room 302 Office hours: 732-932-0122 ext. 20 Thurs 1-2:30pm

Course description

This lecture course surveys art of the United States, from the American Revolution to the Armory Show of 1913. Our approach will be to situate the images, visual practices, and artistic styles of this period within their social, historical, and cultural contexts. Among the topics we will consider are art and nationalism, portraiture and the self, picturing war, art and popular culture, race and representation, the idea of the modern artist, and European influences on American art. In exploring these topics we will pay particular attention to the role that artistic production and consumption played in constructing American social identities and culture across the long nineteenth century. In addition to attending lectures, students will make several visits to area museums to view original artworks. These visits will serve as the basis for the two writing assignments in the course.

Graded work and expectations

10% Class participation; assessment based on attendance, contributions to class discussion, demonstrated effort and commitment to course goals 40% (2) reading exams 50% (2) writing assignments

Attendance and prompt arrival at all classes is required. Students are allowed up to three absences per semester (this includes excused and unexcused absences); more than three absences will seriously impact your final grade and may result in failure. All assigned readings are required and should be completed before class to enable your full participation.

Detailed descriptions of your writing assignments will be provided in separate handouts. Please note that late work will receive a 5% grade reduction per day late; if two classes pass after the due date, your work will receive a failing grade. Exceptions will be made in documented cases of illness, family emergencies, religious holidays, etc. Please make sure to keep me informed of any circumstances that may prevent you from coming to class and/or passing in your best work on time.

Open communication between students and instructor is very important to me; it also directly contributes to your success in this (as in any other) course. I encourage you to meet with me in office hours or schedule an appointment to discuss any aspect of your performance in the course and/or specific course materials/content. Note that I will also comment on drafts of your written work in person, but not by email. Finally, please be aware that Rutgers provides appropriate academic accommodations for students with disabilities; such students should inform me of any special needs during the first week of class to ensure that those needs are met in a timely manner.

Writing guidelines

All of the writing assignments for this course must be typed and should adhere to the following style: 12- point, Times New Roman font; double spacing; single-sided pages; and 1-inch margins on all sides (you will need to set these in MS Word). Please include internal citations when necessary – e.g., (Sheehan, 5) – as well as a bibliography, both of which should adhere to either MLA or Chicago style. MLA and Chicago style guides are available in libraries throughout campus. All papers must be carefully proofread for typographical errors as well as spelling and grammatical mistakes. Students who do not follow these guidelines will be asked to revise and resubmit their essays, which will then be subject to the penalties for lateness defined above.

Plagiarism and academic honesty

Please familiarize yourself with the definition of plagiarism in Rutgers’s official policy statement on academy integrity: http://academicintegrity.rutgers.edu/integrity.shtml. As a student in this course, you are responsible for understanding and thus avoiding the varieties of plagiarism in college writing outlined in this statement. Any student who plagiarizes will receive a zero for the given assignment and, in some cases, a failing grade for the course.

Course materials and resources

Required readings

You should purchase the following books, which have been ordered for you at the Rutgers University Bookstore and NJ Books; additional readings on our syllabus have been posted to Sakai.

• Francis K. Pohl, Framing America: A Social History of American Art (second edition). New York: Thames and Hudson, 2008. ISBN: 978-0500287156. • Marianne Doezema and Elizabeth Milroy, eds., Reading American Art. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. ISBN: 978-0300069983.

Sakai (Rutgers’s course webpage system)

All of our course materials, including the syllabus, scanned readings, writing assignments, and the PowerPoint presentations used in class are available for download through Sakai: http://sakai.rutgers.edu/portal.

Weekly syllabus and required readings

TH, Sep 2 Introduction to American art of the long nineteenth century

TU, Sep 7 Art and revolution

Patricia M. Burnham, “John Trumbull, Historian: The Case of the Battle of Bunker’s Hill,” in Redefining American History Painting, edited by Patricia M. Burnham and Lucretia Hoover Giese, 37-53

Pohl, 74-95

TH, Sep 9 Early portraiture and the construction of social identity

Class visit to the American Galleries at the Zimmerli Museum

David Jaffee, “‘A Correct Likeness’: Culture and Commerce in Nineteenth-Century Rural America,” in Reading American Art, 109-127

Paul Staiti, “Character and Class: The Portraits of John Singleton Copley,” in Reading American Art, 12-37

Pohl, 131-135

TU, Sep 14 The art of observation and deception: the Peale family

Wendy Bellion, “Illusion and Allusion: Charles Willson Peale’s ‘Staircase Group’ at the Columbianum Exhibition,” American Art 17 (Summer 2003): 19-39

Roger B. Stein, “Charles Willson Peale’s Expressive Design: The Artist in His Museum,” in Reading American Art, 38-78

TH, Sep 16 The idea of the American artist: Morse

Patricia A. Johnston, “Samuel F. B. Morse's Gallery of the Louvre: Social Tensions in an Ideal World,” in Seeing High & Low: Representing Social Conflict in American Visual Culture, edited by Patricia A. Johnston, 42-65

Pohl, 120-125

TU, Sep 21 Nature and nation I: Cole and the rise of American landscape painting

Angela Miller, “Thomas Cole: Self, Nature, and Nation,” in The Empire of the Eye: Landscape Representation and American Cultural Politics, 22-64 (read to page 56)

Thomas Cole, “Essay on American Scenery,” American Monthly Magazine 1 (January 1836): 1-12

Pohl, 144-156 TH, Sep 23 Picturing Native Americans: King and Catlin

**Paper #1 due**

Kathryn S. Hight, “Doomed to Perish: George Catlin's Depictions of the Mandan,” in Reading American Art, 150-162

George Catlin, “Letter—No. 1,” in Letters and Notes of the North American Indians, Volume 1 (1841), 1-11

Pohl, 112-120, 162-171

TU, Sep 28 Comic genre painting in antebellum America: Mount, Edmonds, and Spencer

Elizabeth Johns, “An Image of Pure Yankeeism” in American Genre Painting: The Politics of Everyday Life, 24-59

Pohl, 176-184

TH, Sep 30 Studio portrait photography and the American middle class

Object lesson: early studio portraits

Andrea Volpe, “Cartes de Visite Portrait Photographs and the Culture of Class Formation,” in The Middling Sorts: Explorations in the History of the American Middle Class, edited by Burton J. Bledstein and Robert D. Johnston, 157-169

Pohl, 136

TU, Oct 5 NO CLASS (in lieu of field trip on Friday)

TH, Oct 7 Bodies on the battlefield: Photography and the Civil War

“Brady’s Photographs: Pictures of the Dead at Antietam,” New York Times (October 20, 1862): 5

Alan Trachtenberg, “Albums of War: On Reading Civil War Photographs,” in Critical Issues in American Art: A Book of Readings, edited by Mary Ann Calo, 135-154

Pohl, 221-223

FR, Oct 8 Nature and nation II: The romantic landscape tradition at mid-century

Class visit to the MET, 11am-1pm: American landscapes gallery, Robert Lehman Wing (first floor)

Kevin J. Avery, “The Heart of the Andes Exhibited: Frederic E. Church’s Window on the Equatorial World,” American Art Journal 18, no. 1 (Winter 1986): 52-72

Pohl, 156-162, 173-176

TU, Oct 12 Reading exam #1

TH, Oct 14 Slavery to freedom I: African Americans in the art of Johnson and Homer

Patricia Hills, “Cultural Racism: Resistance and Accommodation in the Civil War Art of Eastman Johnson and Thomas Nast,” in Seeing High & Low: Representing Social Conflict in American Visual Culture, edited by Patricia A. Johnston, 103-123

Marc Simpson, “The Bright Side: ‘Humorously Conceived and Truthfully Executed,’” in Winslow Homer: Paintings of the Civil War, 47-63

Pohl, 209-221, 223-227

TU, Oct 19 Class visit to the Morse Center (On view: prints by Winslow Homer)

Lloyd Goodrich, “The Graphic Art of Winslow Homer,” in The Graphic Art of Winslow Homer, 9-19

TH, Oct 21 Class visit to the Morse Center (On view: prints by Winslow Homer)

TU, Oct 26 Slavery to freedom II: Sculpting race and gender

Joy S. Kasson, “Narratives of the Female Body: The Greek Slave,” in Reading American Art, 163- 189

Kirk Savage, “Imagining Emancipation,” in Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth-Century America, 52-88

Pohl, 229-236, 272-273

TH, Oct 28 Art and science in the circle of Eakins

William C. Brownell, “The Art Schools of Philadelphia,” Scribner’s Monthly XVIII, no. 5 (September 1879): 737-750

Elizabeth Johns, “The Gross Clinic, or Portrait of Professor Gross,” in Reading American Art, 232-63

TU, Nov 2 (En)gendering the modern artist I: Eakins and Cassatt

Martin Berger, “Manly Associations,” in Man Made: Thomas Eakins and the Construction of Gilded Age Manhood, 7-46

Griselda Pollock, “Mary Cassatt: Painter of Women and Children,” in Reading American Art, 280- 301

Pohl, 266-272; 306-315 TH, Nov 4 Leon Sydney Jacobs Lecture in American Art: Prof. Matthew Baigell (4:30pm, Lower Dodge Gallery, Zimmerli Museum)

TU, Nov 9 International style I: Whistler and Aestheticism

** Paper #2 due **

Linda Merrill, “Whistler in America,” in After Whistler: The Artist and His Influence on American Painting, edited by Linda Merrill, 10-31

James McNeill Whistler, “Ten O’Clock” lecture, 1885

Pohl, 283-289

TH, Nov 11 International style II: American Impressionism

William H. Gerdts, “Americans and Impressionism: At Home and Abroad,” in American Impressionism (second edition), 29-53

TU, Nov 16 (En)gendering the modern artist II: Sargent and Beaux

Sarah Burns, “The ‘Earnest Untiring Worker’ and the Magician of the Brush: Gender Politics in the Criticism of Cecilia Beaux and John Singer Sargent,” Oxford Art Journal 15, no. 1 (1992): 36- 53

Pohl, 289-294

TH, Nov 18 African-American art in the late-19th century: Tanner

Judith Wilson, “Lifting the ‘Veil’: Henry O. Tanner’s ‘The Banjo Lesson’ and ‘The Thankful Poor,’” in Critical Issues in American Art: A Book of Readings, edited by Mary Ann Calo, 199- 219

Pohl, 315-318

TU, Nov 23 NO CLASS (in lieu of field trip on Dec 10)

TH, Nov 25 NO CLASS (Thanksgiving)

TU, Nov 30 Urban vision I: Social documentary photography (Guest lecturer: Heather Shannon)

Alan Trachtenberg, “Camera Work/Social Work,” in Reading American Photographs, 164-230

Pohl, TBD

TH, Dec 2 Reading exam #2

TU, Dec 7 Urban vision II: The Ashcan School

Rebecca Zurier, “Another Look at the Ashcan School,” in Picturing the City: Urban Vision and the Ashcan School, 23-44

Pohl, 319-334

TH, Dec 9 Fashioning an American avant-garde for the 20th century: The Armory Show

“The Armory Show,” in Sources & Documents: American Art, 1700-1960, edited by John W. McCoubrey, 188-195. Primary sources include: Walt Kuhn, “Letter to Walter Pach” (1912); Frederick James Gregg, “Preface to the Catalogue for the International Exhibition of Modern Art” (1913); Theodore Roosevelt, “A Layman’s Views of an Art Exhibition” (1913); Kenyon Cox, “The Modern Spirit in Art” (1913)

Pohl, 337-342

FR, Dec 10 Class visit to the Newark Museum: American Galleries (10am-12pm)